where both presidential candidates, president obama, governor romney, agreed on one thing and that was that the people of this country faced a fundamental choice in the direction we were going to take. and the american people voted and they resoundedly rejected the approach that is now taken once again for the third year in a row in this republican budget. this budget, as we've heard over the last couple days, fails on a number of counts. number one, it adopts the european style austerity approach that we've seen slow down economies in many parts of europe. we should instead be focusing on job growth and putting people back to work rather than a budget like this budget which will result in 750,000 fewer americans working by the end of this year. that's according to the independent nonpartisan congressional budget office. and it will result in more than two million fewer people working next year. it also fails the test of taking a balanced approach. because it is founded on the failed idea that combiffing another round of tax cuts to people at the very high end of the income scale will